"Defending the fatherless and the oppressed..."

"Dios es Amor" or some other phrase having to do with faith, is what you often see painted on the back of Nicaraguans' primary mode of transportation: old, and colorfully decorated school buses. Throughout my times here in Nicaragua it has always been so evident that God is love and that He is very much present here. I decided to start a blog to update you all on my time spent here in Managua over the next 4 weeks. I want to share how God loves His people here and what I am learning. Apologies for not having written much about my time here over the last couple of weeks but I am going to try to catch you up with some of the highlights right now.

So the first week here was great. I must preface this by saying that I am an extrovert so I gain energy from being around people which is why I was so excited to help with leading teams down here and making sure that they experience Nicaragua to its maximum potential. We had two churches staying at Casa Bernabe orphanage (where I am), Cedar Run Church, from Northern Virginia, and Poplar Creek Church, from Chicago. These trips were both family trips, which means they were a mix of all ages. We had 11 year olds to 70 year olds.

Every Friday night the kids at the orphanage have devotional time as a group. The first night the team arrived they had an opportunity to take part in devotional time with the kids where we got to sing praises to God in Spanish and English. Just like at the church here, any time I am at a worship service in Spanish I become so overjoyed and comforted knowing that God crosses into every culture, He knows no language barriers—because He knows every language. It always reminds me of how GREAT and how BIG our God truly is.

Another fun activity we did with the team was take the younger kids from the orphanage (ages 4-14) to a waterpark called Hertylandia. It’s basically like Disney Land for the kids here, however, much smaller. I was able to see my friends from El Canyon orphanage because they were also at Hertylandia with another team. It was so wonderful seeing their faces, and to hear them call me by name is always a blessing.

My good friend, Ruben, striking a pose at Hertylandia. This is normal for him :)

Every team that comes to Nicaragua is given a work project. The work project for the week was to build hydroponic boxes. Basically what these will be used for is planting crops such as tomatoes, lettuce, onion, celery, and more without a large plot of land. The crops are able to grow in a box with some coal, rice, and water and are grown in about 50 days—very quick! Interesting, huh? I thought so.

During the team’s stay in Nicaragua, we took a trip into the school at La Chureca, Managua’s city trash dump where families live, and took kids out for the day to a park made by the Japanese, they call it, Parque Japon (Ha-pone). So when we arrived to the park, as usual, the kids love to take my camera and run off with it and take lots of pictures. This time, my friend from last year who I got to see again this year, Claudia, took my camera and started taking a photoshoot of her friends. They picked off large pink flowers from the trees in the park and used them as their primary prop for their photoshoot. As I was watching these girls taking pictures, I was thinking to myself that this must be so much fun for them to be able to feel so beautiful surrounded by big pink flowers and away from the trash.

My friend, Claudia, showering herself with flowers during her photoshoot in Parque Japon.

One of my favorite events with the team was when we had a YoungLife Club night where the team organized fun games to play and some of the kids, one from the church and 3 from the orphanage, had a chance to share their testimony with everyone. This was a very special time of listening to what the Lord had done in their lives and how they came to faith. Many of the kids (2 teenage girls and 1 teenage boy) shared their stories and one boy in particular got very emotional as he shared his hatred for his mother. The team had the opportunity to come together and lay hands on the boy as we prayed for him afterwards. It is so great to know that the Lord has put some wonderful people with a strong faith in these kids lives, such as their caretakers who live with them 24/7, as role models for them, and they all shared that same appreciation in their testimonies. Along with praying for the child, we also had a chance to lay hands on Danilo, a caretaker for the teenage boys at the orphanage, who has decided to completely give his entire life to be a disciple of Christ and has greatly influenced many of the kids here in their faith journeys.

The first team was wonderful and I believe that I have learned a lot already only after being here for 2 weeks. The Lord led me to a passage in Psalms chapter 10 one morning when I was searching for comfort for my friends here in Nicaragua:

“The LORD is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.”

After being here for a little over 2 weeks now, my prayer is just that: that my friends here would take comfort in knowing that the Lord will arise and will defeat the enemy, whether it be something from their past they are trapped in, an addiction they are struggling with, or poverty in general. He has not forgotten the helpless and I pray that my friends here would commit themselves to Him because he is the helper of the fatherless.